There are a lot of self appointed experts out there who appear to know more about American law, culture and industry than we do ourselves. For the benefit of those who actually read these posts I offer the following.
1, Bankruptcy in the US operates as a safe harbor that allows a financially strapped business to get temporary protection from their creditors while they reorganize, on the basis of the idea that more value for creditors, stockholders and employees can come out of a going business that's been reorganized than from one that's forced into dissolution. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt-like in TWA's case.
2. Bankruptcy is available to foreign carriers-it's as simple as filing incorporation papers in any state in the US....I will do that for you for $100 plus the filing fee. Quite a number of foreign companies have US based subsidiaries....so if you didn't move to take advantage of that and you needed it, whose fault is that? Why, it's your corporate lawyers, that's who.
3. Eddington is way off base. He makes an argument that is self interested and uninformed. The gist of his argument seems to be twofold: First that Chapter 11 keeps airlines in business that would otherwise be liquidated. That's wrong, but in the event that DL, UA, NW and whoever ARE unable to continue, they WILL be liquidated like TWA was.
Second, he argues that US airlines have "soaked up 15-20 billion in public subsidies and loan guarantees and they still can't make a profit." No basis is given for these assertions.
4. He argues that chapter 11 is used as a form of state aid that keeps unprofitable airlines around, bloating capacity and depressing prices on North Atlantic routes....which is, I suppose, what really gripes him. He wants to jack up fares but can't see his way through to doing it as long as zees devilish Americains are ******* everything up for him and his pals.
5. As a practical matter nothing Eddington says is going to change law and legislation here in the States. We've had bankruptcy law for a long time, and it works well in terms of returning the most value to creditors, employees and shareholders by salvaging a company that's having cash flow problems...dissolution of businesses that can be salvaged is not good public policy here or anywwhere else in the world.
And, in fact, speaking in the long term, anything that returns more value to the stakeholders than they'd get in a dissolution is good policy. You can always dissolve a company if it can't survive. You should try it.
So, you gotta ask why he's making with the big show?
Simply, because you can get a lot of mileage in the rest of the world, Europe in particular, by bitching about the Americans, particularly to a friendly audience.